Addressing Homelessness: Reducing-Preventing-Ending conference agenda will seek to share understanding and strategic thinking of the homeless situation in the UK and will highlight issues of particular concern such as; the increasing occurrence of youth homelessness, the risks and consequences of modern day slavery and the factors impacting on health in the homeless community. The programme will feature plenary addresses from those at the forefront of tackling homelessness covering the evidence, causes and impacts, whilst examples of successful interventions and projects will be showcased as possible long term solutions which delegates’ own organisations may benefit from adopting.

The British Academy have announced details of a call focusing on Cities & Infrastructures, funded through the Global Challenges Research Fund, with a deadline of 14 June 2017. This call is subject to Official Development Assistance eligibility criteria (Ed – see the end of the post for more details)

The call will support interdisciplinary projects which address the challenge of creating and maintaining sustainable and resilient cities in developing countries. The call has four sub-themes (taken from British Academy website):

“a) Planning: In the context of the large, dispersed and unplanned cities of the global south, planning for resilience becomes a matter of collaborative initiative involving a host of actors and sentient infrastructures. This requires mobilising plural and interdisciplinary knowledges, both for understanding and for acting in intelligent ways.

b) People: Human vulnerability and resilience go hand in hand. The poor are deprived in plural ways, but also forced to become resilient subjects, making use of the city and their know-how in imaginative ways.

c) Infrastructure: Cities are held together by infrastructures, which also instantiate and regulate social life in quite strong ways. In the global south the infrastructures are broken, incomplete, badly regulated, underfunded and often reliant on vernacular improvisations. Technical solutions alone will go only so far, and are expensive.

d) Habitat: The urban habitat is central to resilience, in the form of lived experience, the consequences of emissions and heating, the formation of symbolic and public culture, the consequences of urban architecture and design. This is an obvious terrain for interdisciplinary work on jointly making sense of how habitats can be managed as a silent form of ‘atmospheric’ regulation.”

Projects in the region of £300k will be supported, and the British Academy anticipate that these will last for up to 16 months with start dates in September 2017. You can access the scheme notes here.

If you are interested in applying for this call, please contact your Research Development Manager in the first instance who will be able to advise on your eligibility and the specific requirements of this call.

About ODA Eligibility Criteria

The Cities & Infrastructure Programme aims to support the “economic development and welfare of developing countries.” Only research that has a primary objective which is directly and primarily relevant to the problems of developing countries may be counted as ODA. We will require applicants to demonstrate that the proposal is ODA eligible. ODA eligibility is an essential criterion – projects will only be deemed eligible for funding if they can demonstrate that they satisfy ODA eligibility criteria. The British Academy, with the other Global Challenges Research Fund delivery partners, have provided an additional ODA guidance document for applicants.

After the successful first call for applications, MetroPolis are pleased to announce the second call for applications for the Chancellor’s Fellowship Scheme are open.

The Fellowships are an ideal opportunity for staff who are developing potential policy-related impact linked to an evidence base in their research findings. The fellowships offer staff access to funding of up to £9,000 to cover the costs of a placement with an external organisation that can help to accelerate policy impact. Organisations can include government departments (international, national or local), think tanks, charities and businesses.

Established or establishing researchers from Manchester Met with a proven track record of high quality research with the potential to translate into policy impact are eligible to apply.

The Arts and Humanities Research Council is launching its 2017 Film Awards to find new and emerging talent that straddle the worlds of both filmmaking and arts and humanities research.

This award is designed to showcase, reward and recognise the best of the growing number of high-quality short films (defined as no longer than 30 minutes) that are linked to arts and humanities research. For the third year running, there is also the “Inspiration Award” which is open to members of the public, provided their film has been inspired by research in the arts and humanities.

Awards will be made in five categories and the winner of each category will win £2,000 to be invested in their future filmmaking activities. All applicants must accompany their submissions with supporting text which must detail how the film is directly linked or influenced by arts and humanities research.

It is grant reviewing season and I’ve been reading through some very interesting applications from some accomplished qualitative researchers in the social sciences and media studies. The rationale and background for projects are usually very well described and justified, as are the track records of the applicants.

But I’ve seen some common areas across several of the applications that need more detail. These are:

There is often not enough (or sometimes even any) information about the approach taken to analysing the qualitative data you are collecting. Simply saying you are ‘using NVivo to analyse the data’ and leaving it at that is not enough. NVivo seems to have become a magic word to use to explain and justify qualitative data analysis. But it is just a data management tool. I want to know what you are going to do with it. There are many approaches to analysing qualitative data. Which…

The Health Foundation is beginning to implement a long-term strategy to improve people’s health in the UK.

The Foundation are inviting proposals for research to further the understanding of factors that shape young people’s future health prospects, as part of a Health Foundation inquiry on the topic.

The project requires a research partner with a track record of high quality policy and practice research in the field of young people (specifically between the ages of 12 and 24 years old and transitions to adulthood).

The aim is to produce a quantitative picture of the factors that contribute to today’s young people having healthy lives, now and in the future, and recommendations for the actions necessary to improve future health prospects.

We anticipate bids of up to £180,000 for research completed over 18 months, by March 2019.

The foundation will hold an information call on Wednesday 17 May 2017 with a closing date for applications at 12 noon onMonday 5 June 2017.